


Hero of Another Story

by alchemicink



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP
Genre: #KeitosHardLife, Chinen is probably magic maybe or something, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Horses, Itadaki High Jump, Jousting, Medieval England, Sports Fic, Time Travel, Yuto's inability to keep his pants on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 16:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink/pseuds/alchemicink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keito thought the hardest thing in his life was the possibility of making a fool of himself on national TV. He never expected to get stuck in Medieval England with his bandmates and participating in a jousting tournament.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hero of Another Story

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Game Season](http://thegameseason.livejournal.com/) on livejournal. It's a multifandom sports fic fest, so please go check out all the great stories there!
> 
> The title of this fic comes from [this](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroOfAnotherStory) TVTrope. And please have fun spotting the references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail! Special thanks to Sheryl for beta-reading this craziness. I appreciate all the support! And also thanks to Lisa for cheering me on too! I couldn’t have made it to the finish line without either of you <3

Okamoto Keito was pretty sure his father never had to do things like this. But then again, his father was mostly active as an idol in the 80’s, a time when variety shows were much less ridiculous. Probably. Most likely. In any event, Keito was reasonably certain that his father had never been forced to wear full samurai armor and then perform strange tasks in front of a film crew.

“Will you stop poking me?” Keito snapped at his bandmate, Yaotome Hikaru, who had been happily hitting him in the side with the blunt end of his spear for the past five minutes. The dull repetitive _clang_ against his armor was starting to grate on his nerves.

“I’m practicing for when we get to storm the castle,” Hikaru announced with a toothy grin showing all his crooked teeth. Keito turned his head to look up again at the large feudal era castle they were filming at this morning. The TV crew was still trying to set up the equipment and discussing logistics with the castle staff. And they were also wrangling up all the horses. Keito had hoped that their manager had been joking about the horses earlier, but he could see some of the animals from a distance being handled by the crew. He shuddered to think how disastrous that was going to turn out. With his luck, Keito would probably end up on the wildest stallion of all.

Feeling the strain of all the extra weight from the armor, Keito lowered himself down onto the nearest bench to rest while he waited. But his solitary peace was short-lived once Chinen Yuri slid right into the empty spot beside him, wearing a slightly mischievous grin on his face. Despite being the youngest and shortest of their group, Chinen didn’t seem to be showing any signs of being uncomfortable in his own samurai gear.

“So is something bothering you or are your warrior pants just pinching you in sensitive places?” Chinen asked as he sprawled out like he was just relaxing in his pajamas in the comfort of his own bedroom instead of on a public park bench.

Keito scowled at the question and shifted slightly in his seat to remove the pressure of the tightly bound plated armor. It was true that the outfit chafed a bit. But it was also true that something was bothering Keito. Chinen had always been astoundingly perceptive when it came to figuring out stuff like that. Back when they first debuted together as a group and Keito felt like he was the one who didn’t belong, Chinen had been the one to see through his smiling façade, had been the one to reach out his hand and welcome him into the group.

“I don’t think you’ll understand,” Keito said, hoping maybe Chinen would drop the subject and stop worrying about him. He turned to look away from his friend who hadn’t even broken a sweat in the mid-morning sunshine.

Much like his eight other bandmates, Keito had been really excited when they found out their variety special _Itadaki High Jump_ had been approved as a regular show. The show consisted of weird and strange challenges, like making them run races against each other at 5am or have them dress up in absurd costumes to help people out. But once they started filming more episodes of the series, Keito began to worry. Was he entertaining enough? Was he interesting? Was he making a fool of himself on national TV because he was terrible at everything?

“Are you insinuating that I’m not smart enough to understand your problem?” Chinen teased to lighten the mood. “Because I happen to be very smart, if you weren’t aware.”

Keito leaned back a little and gave his friend a particularly exasperated eye roll. “That’s exactly it. You’re smart. You’re amazing at acrobatics. You’re a fantastic dancer. Everyone wants to be your friend. And you can even manage to sleep in the van when Daiki and Hikaru are having a rap battle in the backseat.”

“Well, the ability to sleep through loud obnoxious noises is a Chinen family trait…” he answered with a smirk before letting a more serious look settle on his face. “You have your own talents too, you know. Don’t let yourself feel inferior next to me. We’ve all got a place in this group.”

Keito still disagreed and frowned, but didn’t respond. He was startled when Chinen suddenly patted him on the shoulder. “You’re important, Keito. You’re our anchor in the storm. Don’t forget that.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Keito muttered quietly but Chinen had already jumped up and wandered back towards where the rest of his bandmates were mingling together. With a sigh, Keito followed after him to see what everyone else was doing.

“Hey,” Takaki Yuya called out as he jogged back to the group from where he had been talking to the staff. He couldn’t travel too fast because of the bulky armor but the curled ends of his brown hair bounced as he moved. “They said it still might be an hour or two before they’re ready to shoot.”

“Ugh,” Yamada Ryosuke whined and dramatically leaned against Keito’s shoulder since it was closest to him. Keito sort of awkwardly bent at the knees a little to accommodate the height difference. “Do we have to keep wearing all this armor?”

Takaki shook his head. “They said we could leave the heavy stuff behind and check out the museum nearby while we wait.” He pointed to the building across the road that they’d passed by earlier. _Medieval History Museum_ was written in both English and Japanese on the sign in front.

“Let’s go learn things,” Arioka Daiki exclaimed and pulled Yamada off of Keito’s shoulder. Keito rolled his shoulder to loosen it up again and then reached to undo some of his armor but then—

_Clang_

He paused and glared at Hikaru who just gave him a _couldn’t-resist_ shrug of explanation before turning to help Yabu Kota stumble out of his samurai gear.

“I’m keeping the hat though,” Yabu insisted. He rested his hands protectively on the helmet, like the sturdy steel was capable of shattering. One lone feather stuck straight up in the air in the center of the helmet, adding some character to it.

Since there was nothing better to do, the whole group trudged to the cool, air-conditioned museum building. Nakajima Yuto brought up the rear as he struggled with his armor removal.

“Wait for meeee,” he shouted after them. “I need to take off my pants!”

Chinen doubled back to help Yuto remove the bottom half of his armor. How he managed to get tangled up in the metal in the first place, no one knew. Once Chinen had successfully separated Yuto from his metal pants, he dragged his tall friend back to where everyone was waiting.

Exhibits from all around the world lined the walls as they all stepped inside the cool air-conditioned building. The nine of them shuffled through the ticket line quickly since they were apparently the only visitors at the moment. The ticket lady gave each of them a friendly smile, like she was used to all her visitors being half-clad in samurai armor, until she got to Hikaru who was still carrying his spear. She gave him and the weapon a silently disapproving glare as she handed him his ticket. Hikaru easily ignored the glare and just proceeded to poke Keito again.

“Will you stop that?!”

Hikaru cackled and then wandered off with Inoo Kei to look at the sword display. “Hikaru, I bet you couldn’t juggle these swords?” Inoo teased. He swept his arm out to gesture at the katana collection on the wall.

Keito didn’t hang around to hear Hikaru’s answer. He walked off to the nearest exhibit. It was about sports like archery and jousting and games similar to horseshoes and golf played around the world during the medieval time period. He carefully read each information card to learn about them all. He never knew when he was going to need to whip out random bits of information on a variety show.

“Hey you guys, come look at this!” an excited voice called out. Keito turned to see Daiki excitedly gesturing at a display over in the corner of the room. The group gathered around to see, their armor clanking together as they moved.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to shout in a museum,” Yamada scolded.

“No, no, you’re thinking of movie theaters,” Daiki answered.

“Or libraries,” Hikaru added.

“Churches!” Yuto called out as well.

“Memorials?” Takaki guessed with a shrug.

“My great aunt’s house!”

They all stopped and stared at Inoo, who blinked back at them. “She has very sensitive ears,” he explained.

“Anyway,” Daiki said, returning their attention to the small exhibit in the corner. “Look at this fancy trophy.” The trophy in question looked like a large silvery chalice with a nice design etched around the rim. Keito imagined that it could easily pass as a prop in an Indiana Jones movie. “And also, look at this.” Daiki pointed to the one line of information about the item written in the display card nearby.

_This trophy was won in a jousting tournament in England, year 1257 by the mysterious Heisei Knights who were never seen again._

“That’s weird,” Yabu said. He reached to scratch his head in confusion but then remembered his helmet was in the way. He settled for his exposed forehead instead.

“Yeah, so weird,” Takaki agreed. “Who gives out such a fancy trophy for jousting?”

Daiki elbowed Takaki for his dumb comment and immediately regretted it as he bounced off the other’s plated samurai armor covering his torso. “I meant the name _heisei_ ,” he clarified as he rubbed his sore elbow. “Isn’t that weird?”

They all looked to Keito for confirmation since, as the only one of them who’d ever lived in England before, he was the supposed authority on the subject. Keito did indeed think it was strange that some medieval knights happened to share the same name of the current Japanese era of history their group was named after. “Yeah, it’s weird,” he conceded.

“It’s a really shiny trophy,” Inoo said, leaning over the rope barrier to look at it more closely. He began to reach his hand out towards it but Yamada slapped it away.

“Dude, no touching museum exhibits.”

Inoo leaned back. “I don’t see any signs anywhere.”

“That’s because people generally know not to touch things in a museum.” Yamada whipped his head around as a bit of movement caught the corner of his eye. “Chinen, what are you doing!?” While Yamada was lecturing, Chinen had slipped under the rope and saddled up to the stand where the trophy rested.

“Yeah, Chinen the rebel!” Inoo cheered him on and gave Yamada a smug look.

Keito watched his friends’ antics and tried to ignore the feeling of dread building up in his stomach. He glanced around to see if the ticket lady was anywhere nearby, watching them with a glare reminiscent of a librarian with rowdy loud children within her sanctuary. Keito was sure they were going to get kicked out of the museum any moment now. But the lady was nowhere to be seen.

Chinen grinned as he stretched his fingers out and said the words that were always heard right before something really bad happened: “What could possibly go wrong?”

And as soon as he touched the trophy, they were all engulfed in a bright white light right before everything went dark.

***

To say that Keito was surprised to open his eyes and see blue sky above would be an understatement. Much like saying nobody likes Mystery Meatloaf Day at the cafeteria would be an understatement. He had been inside the museum half a second ago and now he was lying flat on his back facing the sunny cloudless sky that hadn’t been there before. Keito tried to move but then realized there was a person lying on top of his legs.

“Um, Inoo?” he began tentatively as he recognized the familiar messy mop of hair, “do you think you can get off my legs?”

Having just regained consciousness, Inoo blinked a few times as he tried to orient himself to the situation. He didn’t bother moving however, but pouted like he’d just been roused from a pleasant nap. “Has anyone ever told you that you have very comfortable knees?”

“…thank you?” Keito wondered if maybe Inoo had hit his head in transit because Keito was still wearing the bottom half of his armor and he couldn’t imagine that the hard metal would make a good pillow. Then again, Inoo was always saying weird things. As Keito glanced around, he saw that the rest of his bandmates were tangled up in similar positions. Amusingly, Yuto had landed directly on top of Chinen, and so their tallest groupmate was completely obscuring their shortest.

“Get off,” came the muffled grunt from below, “I’d like to be able to breathe again.”

Yuto rolled off with an “oops” of apology which he repeated as he collided with Yabu and Daiki nearby. Takaki, who had managed to untangle himself from Yamada, grabbed Inoo by his shoulders to hoist him off of Keito. Once free, Keito stood up too, helped up by an extended hand from Hikaru, who thankfully resisted the urge to poke him with the spear again at the moment.

Now that he had a better view of their surroundings, he realized that there really wasn’t very much to look at. They were standing in the middle of a grassy plain of gently rolling hills that seemed to stretch on for a good long ways. A few trees dotted the horizon in the distance but not much else. Keito felt like something was missing, and after a moment, he realized it was sound. The usual symphony of city life that he’d grown accustomed to his entire life was absent.

“So…” Yabu began slowly, “what just happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Yamada said as he put his hands on his hips and began to berate them all like a tiny angry housewife. “I said ‘hey don’t touch that’ and Chii said ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ and then everything possible _went wrong_!” Once he finished his rant, he was red in the face and breathing heavily, shoulders heaving as he glared at all of them.

“Don’t panic,” Yuto said as he patted the top of Yamada’s head.

Yabu gently clapped Yamada on his exposed shoulder where he’d taken off some of the armor earlier. “The best thing for a panic attack is to stick your head between your knees.”

Yamada did as he was told but the weight of the armor he was still wearing threw off his sense of balance and he toppled forward into a somersault and then ended up lying flat on his back again.

“Even when he’s falling down, he’s graceful. How does he do it?” Hikaru complained.

“It’s the Yamada charm,” Chinen explained.

“Yeah, the Yamada charm,” Yuto agreed.

“All of you shut up,” Yamada grumbled from his position in the grass.

“Do you hear cheering?” Takaki asked, interrupting.

“Everyone is applauding Yamada’s amazingly graceful somersault,” Inoo joked.

“No, I hear it too,” Keito said. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of a nearby hill.

Curiously and cautiously, the group climbed up to see what all the fuss was about. In the distance past the bottom of the hill, there was a small group of spectators watching two people on horses. The audience looked to be wearing relatively simple and plain outfits, but the horse riders were clad in full armor, each holding a brightly colored lance and shield. Keito quickly recognized the activity as jousting from what he’d just read about in the museum.

“Hey, did we get transported to a Renaissance fair?” Yuto asked. At the top of the hill, Yuto was craning his neck forward to focus better. Keito reached his hand out and grabbed his accident-prone friend by the back of his armor in order to keep him from rolling down the hill and making an unwanted scene. “Do you think they have deep-fried oreos here?” Yuto continued. “I’ve always wanted to try those.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Inoo said, shaking his head. Keito looked to Chinen to see if he had any explanation for the situation, but even he was frowning in confusion at the medieval jousting spread out in front of them. His eyebrows drew close together as he made the same face he made whenever someone refused to buy him a soda from the drink machine.

Nearby, Daiki dug his cell phone out from somewhere inside his armor. “I’ll just use my GPS to figure out where we are.”

“Shh,” Yabu said, waving his arm towards Daiki but never removing his eyes from where they were locked on the joust below. He began quietly commentating on the match like a sports announcer watching a soccer game. The only one really listening was Takaki, but even he looked like he was nodding with feigned interest.

“That’s weird. I have absolutely no service out here.” Daiki frowned and shook his phone as if that might help. After that was unsuccessful, he flipped the phone upside and waved it in the air while he put his hand to his forehead and made antenna-like motions with his fingers. That, too, didn’t restore service to his phone. “Anyone else’s phone work?”

The screen of Keito’s phone indicated that it didn’t have service either. It wasn’t even roaming for nearby cell towers. He was starting to get a bad feeling about it. He looked back at the jousting tournament—one knight had finally been knocked off his horse—and he hoped his gut instinct was wrong. Time travel had to be impossible, right?

“Let’s just go ask the cosplayers where we are,” Inoo suggested.

Since the joust was over, the crowd began to break up and slowly make their way back to what looked to be a small village in the distance. Keito could make out a few thatched roofs and some small gardens. They weren’t sure who to approach since the peasants were either giving them wary side-eyes or ignoring them completely.

“Um… _hello_?” Takaki called out tentatively in English. It was clear that they probably weren’t in Japan, so the odds of someone around there speaking Japanese were slim.

The winning knight had just helped up his competition from the ground. He waved as the other knight trotted away on his horse before he turned to address the group of strangers in front of him.

“ _Greetings, fellow knights_ ,” the knight said as he removed his helmet. “ _You all look a bit lost. From where do you hail?_ ”

The group immediately looked to Keito to translate the knight’s English. He resisted the urge to scowl because as many times as they’d been to Hawaii together, they all knew enough of the language to at least understand mostly what the guy was saying. But Keito translated the question quickly before beginning to answer.

“ _Well we’re from…_ ” If Keito was right about his time-travel theory—and it was looking like a legit possibility—then it would be pointless for Keito to answer honestly with “Japan.”

“ _France_ ,” Takaki butted in before Keito could think further. The group nodded in agreement and Keito resisted the urge to slap his hand to his forehead. At least Takaki and Chinen had been to France before and could speak a tiny bit of the language if questioned.

But thankfully, the knight seemed to accept this answer and continued. “ _You looked like you’ve run into a bit of trouble during your recent travels_ ,” he pointed out, obviously noticing that they were only partially clad in their samurai armor, which probably looked extra strange to him since the style was a bit different from British armor.

“ _Yes_ ,” Keito said, finally deciding to just say whatever came to mind. “ _We were attacked by some nasty roving bandits_.” He spoke slowly enough so that everyone could understand his slightly accented words.

“ _Who were these bandits?_ ”

“ _They called themselves…_ ”

“ _Stormtroopers!_ ” Yuto filled in the blank. He looked entirely too excited saying the name for someone who had supposedly just been attacked by them. But again, the knight didn’t seem to take much notice.

“ _Hm… well I am the protector of this realm, so I’ll look into it,_ ” the knight answered. “ _For now you can stay at my castle to rest up. In fact, I’m hosting a jousting tournament in two days if you’d like to stay and watch._ ” He smiled and gestured for them to follow him as he climbed back up on his horse.

“He’s giving us a place to stay and probably free food,” Keito translated quickly at his confused bandmates. “Let’s go.”

“ _Oh, I’m being rude,_ ” the knight began again. “ _I should introduce myself. I’m the Lord of Angleton, Guardian of the Sacred Tambourine, Keeper of the Scrolls of Antioch, and Knight of the Order of the Brotherhood. But most people just call me Tim._ ”

“Tim,” Yabu repeated with a nod. “Good name.” Keito was sure that Yabu hadn’t actually understood any of that except for the “just call me Tim” part.

“ _And you are?_ ” Tim asked Keito.

He hesitated for a moment before realizing what the answer had to be. “ _We are the Heisei Knights._ ”

***

“So… time travel, huh?” Chinen, having just removed all of his armor, flopped down onto the straw mattress in the small guest house Tim had provided for them. They had just recently finished a lovely feast provided by their host which Keito probably would have enjoyed more if he hadn’t had to play translator the whole time. Although he supposed he couldn’t blame his bandmates for not understanding Tim’s old-fashioned way of speaking because he had a bit of trouble with it too. But even he didn’t need to understand English to recognize the trophy sitting on display in Tim’s castle. They’d all noticed it as soon as they sat down to eat dinner. It was the same as the one in the museum, and apparently it was going to be awarded to the winner of the upcoming jousting tournament.

“Looks like you got us into this mess by touching the museum exhibit,” Keito said as he sat down beside his friend. Having removed the heavy weight of his own armor, Keito felt a bit lighter. He still felt bulky and unnatural while wearing the extra weight.

“Or…” Chinen suggested, “it was destiny for us to come here. You’re welcome.” He teasingly stuck his tongue out before rolling over to his stomach. Sometimes it seemed like Chinen was much younger than his actual age.

Keito shifted a bit on the lumpy mattress to get more comfortable. He already missed the conveniences of modern society like pillow-top mattresses, cell phone games, and indoor plumbing. “Even when you mess things up, it turns out good,” he complained.

Chinen plucked a few bits of straw out and threw them at Keito’s head. They fluttered through the air and landed in Keito’s hair, but he didn’t bother brushing them away at the moment. “Still feeling useless, huh? You know, you really should stop comparing yourself to others.”

But before Keito could respond to this, the rest of the group trudged back in one by one from wherever they’d been earlier. The sun had just set and now it was too dark to do anything else but sit by the candlelight in their little wooden guest house and hope Yuto didn’t accidentally set the curtains on fire or something.

“Fun fact we just learned,” Daiki announced as he snagged the nearest chair. His clothing had grass stains smeared all over it. “Cows don’t like it when you try to sing to them.”

“No they do not,” Hikaru agreed and sat down too. He tried to smooth away the grass and dirt stains from his own clothes.

The group just looked to the two of them in confusion. “Why did you even…?” Yamada began to ask.

“We don’t want to talk about it,” Daiki said. “So how is everyone else?” He not-so-subtly changed the subject.

“Well, we have sorta important news,” Yabu announced. He picked up the nearest candle and held it close to his face like he was setting up ambiance for a ghost story or something, but then his eyebrow was dangerously close to catching on fire so he quickly set it back down on the table. “We’ve entered ourselves into Sir Tim’s jousting tournament.”

“We’ve what?!” several voices called out at once.

“Well either that or we volunteered to cook roasted chicken for dinner,” Yabu clarified. “But I’m 86% certain it’s the jousting one. It’s kinda hard to talk to Sir Tim when you only understand half of what he says. Anyway, it’s definitely all Takaki and Inoo’s fault.” He pointed to the offending parties in the corner.

“Hey!” Takaki protested, but Inoo just shrugged like he couldn’t deny it.

“This seems like a terrible idea,” Chinen complained quietly, which Keito thought was strange for him considering that he was usually very excited for whatever challenges were thrown his way.

“So how did this happen?” Yamada asked, crossing his arms and giving them all a stern look again reminiscent of an angry housewife.

Yabu swung his arms out as he prepared to tell his epic tale. “It all began when the three of us were hanging out with Sir Tim. He asked us about France and Takaki tried to tell him things about cheese and then Inoo said he would speak to him in French.”

“Except Inoo actually spoke in really poor Chinese,” Takaki added.

Inoo gasped in mock-offended tone. “Hey, I studied Chinese in college.”

“Are you sure?” Takaki questioned.

“Like _you_ know how to say anything in Chinese other than _I love you_ ,” Inoo scoffed.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Yabu continued, “Sir Tim has never been to France so he didn’t notice the difference. So after that he told us about all the cool things he does as a knight. I didn’t really understand most of it but he didn’t say anything about dragons so that’s disappointing. And then he asked if we wanted to participate in his jousting tournament and I said yes.”

“…then isn’t it really your fault we’re in the tournament?” Chinen asked.

“Takaki and Inoo were there and they didn’t stop me so… they’re responsible.” He pointed to the two of them again for emphasis.

“Hey!” Takaki repeated but Inoo just shrugged nonchalantly again.

“We don’t really know anything about jousting though,” Daiki complained. He leaned his elbow against the table but accidentally shook the candle so that it tipped precariously towards its side for a moment. He frowned and scooted his chair away from the table.

“Keito does,” Chinen said, clapping him on the shoulder and bringing everyone’s attention over to their direction.

Keito automatically wanted to sink into the wall as the whole group turned their eyes on him. Chinen wasn’t entirely correct. All Keito knew was just what he had read in the museum before they had travelled through time to get here.

“Uh, well…” he began. It suddenly felt very hot in the small room. “It involves horses.”

“Really? I hadn’t guessed,” Hikaru drawled out in a sarcastic voice.

Feeling more flustered, Keito struggled to find the right words to explain the details of the sport. He stuttered a moment, suddenly feeling like a kid again just returned from his years at the boarding school in England, unable to articulate his feelings in Japanese accurately at the time. But then Chinen caught his eye and gave him a friendly encouraging smile. That seemed to help.

With a deep breath, he continued with a bit more steadiness and explained to them the rules of the game—simply knock your opponent off of their horse—and the importance of chivalry and sportsmanship—i.e., don’t use any dirty tricks to cheat. They all seemed pretty interested once he got into it, and he felt good once he’d finished.

“So do you think we can return to the present if we win the tournament?” Yamada asked.

“Maybe if we have the trophy that brought us here?” Hikaru suggested. “We don’t know what really happened but if we recreate the circumstances, maybe we can go home?”

“Do we all have to participate in the joust?” Chinen asked, suddenly looking concerned.

“With nine of us, we’ll have better odds of winning,” Yabu said. “Inoo did the math earlier.”

“He really just scribbled out some numbers on paper to make Yabu happy,” Takaki pointed out.

Inoo whacked Takaki on the top of his head. “Stop it.”

“I think we have a bigger problem though,” Daiki interrupted their squabble. “Do any of us know how to ride a horse?”

“I do!” Yuto exclaimed with a happy grin as he jumped up from where he had been sitting and bumping into the table in the process. Yamada reached his hand out to stabilize the wobbly candle again and shot Yuto an exasperated glare.

The anxiousness he was feeling earlier was welling up in Keito’s stomach again. But he supposed they didn’t have much choice. The information in the museum had said the “Heisei Knights” had won the tournament, and they couldn’t do that unless they participated. He looked to Chinen for reassurance again, but the younger was picking at the straw mattress and trying to hide a hint of a frown on his face. Keito suddenly remembered that Chinen didn’t really like animals, so the thought of having to ride a horse, let alone one charging at another opponent, was probably a bit intimidating.

Yabu nodded in an attempt to look determined but he didn’t look completely confident about their chances. “Well I guess tomorrow, you can teach us all how to ride,” he told Yuto and then he turned to Keito, “and you can teach us more about the game.”

“This will be fun!” Inoo said and pretended to wave his arms like a cheerleader.

Chinen rolled his eyes and began to speak. “What could possibly go—”

“Don’t you dare finish that statement,” Yamada cut Chinen off, pointing dramatically at him.

Hikaru yawned and stretched, bumping into the table and setting the candle into motion again. They all held their breath and watched as it wobbled again, and then collectively let it out as it finally stabilized. That, of course, meant someone accidentally blew the candle out, plunging them all into darkness.

“…I guess it’s time for bed, then?” Takaki suggested.

It took a few moments for everyone to shuffle around in the dark before they all settled down in mostly comfortable positions to sleep. Keito pulled the slightly itchy wool blanket over him as he curled up on his part of the lumpy mattress.

“Goodnight Yabu, goodnight Chinen,” Yuto called out into the darkness.

“Goodnight Yuto.”

“Goodnight Takaki, goodnight Yama-chan,” he continued.

“Goodnight Yuto.”

“Goodnight Inoo, goodnight Daiki.”

“Goodnight Yuto.” At this point their voices were beginning to sound annoyed.

“Goodnight Keito,” Yuto continued, oblivious to the fact that they just wanted to sleep.

“Goodnight Yuto,” Keito replied, actually not really minding it. Yuto’s happy attitude was comforting when they were so far from home. It helped him forget that there was a possibility they may never make it back to their own time. If they didn’t, at least they had each other.

“Goodnight Hik—”

“If you don’t stop, I will smother you with this pillow,” Hikaru threatened.

“—aru,” Yuto continued, unfazed by Hikaru’s warning.

Keito heard the sound of a pillow hitting something in the dark.

“Dude, I’m not Yuto,” Yamada complained. “He’s on the other side of the room.”

Yuto’s cackle-like laugh echoed throughout the tiny space.

Yabu coughed. “You’re getting feathers everywhere.”

“I thought we were sleeping, you guys. Shut up. I need my beauty sleep,” Inoo said from somewhere in the room, but his voice was muffled like he hadn’t had the energy to move his face off of his pillow long enough to speak.

“Are you sure?” Takaki’s voice joined the fray.

“Hikaru, hit Takaki with the pillow too,” Inoo said.

Another thump and then another cough from Yabu.

“I think you’re hitting me on purpose,” Yamada complained again. “I didn’t even do anything.”

“Guys, there are feathers everywhere,” Yabu whined.

Keito smiled and snuggled down further under his blanket, drifting off to sleep thinking about his silly bandmates instead of the jousting training they’d have to face in the morning.

***

Keito wondered who was going to blink first. His eyes were beginning to water but he held strong. His opponent would surely break at any moment. But then, just as he thought he was going to win, that horrible itching feeling right before a sneeze made its way into his nostrils. He scrunched up his nose and mouth to try to stave it off, but it didn’t work. He knew he’d lost as soon as he sneezed right in his opponent’s face.

Thankfully, the horse apparently didn’t take offense to being sneezed on. Instead, it just ambled away across the grass, having lost interest in staring contests.

“I’m not sure how this is going to help,” he said to Yuto.

“Yeah this is dumb,” Hikaru complained while he was trying to keep his horse from galloping away. His seemed to have a short attention span. Hikaru dug his heels into the grass and tugged on the reins, but he still ended up being dragged forward.

“No,” Yuto shook his head very seriously. “This is important. It’s how you earn the horses’ respect.” He turned back to stare into the eyes of his own horse.

“They’re not freaking hippogriffs, you know,” Daiki complained. “You don’t need to bow to them like in _Harry Potter_.” Daiki’s horse didn’t seem to like that, and neighed loudly right in his face. “I’m sorry Buttercup, I didn’t mean it!” He petted his horse’s nose to appease her.

Keito grabbed his own horse and brought it back to the group while he observed everyone else’s progress. Yuto, of course, was a natural with horses and surprisingly, Inoo seemed to be doing quite well too. Inoo was already riding his horse around by the stables and jumping over small bushes like he had been doing this his entire life. It seemed like Inoo’s horse was a bit of a showoff. Takaki, who had ridden horses a few times before, also seemed to get along well with his own, although he had spent the last twenty minutes just happily brushing his golden-colored palomino’s mane.

Yabu, on the other hand, seemed to be having an actual conversation with his horse, and so Keito thought it was best to just leave them alone. And Yamada, over by the edge of the group, was still in an intense staring contest with his horse, determined not to lose. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been going, but Yamada wasn’t showing any signs of needing to blink any time soon.

He turned to Chinen and frowned as he realized his friend was having trouble. Chinen stood facing the horse which towered over his short figure. Chinen held his shoulders up like they were tense, like he was wary of making any sudden movements. It was strange to see Chinen like this. Keito had seen their youngest groupmate do all sorts of high-flying trapeze tricks and even dangle over their concert audience by just a few ropes. He’d seen the DVD of Chinen parasailing in French Alps, excited and happy about it while his companion Takaki had just tried to avoid it. Normally, Chinen was fearless.

“Maybe you should give your horse a treat?” Keito suggested.

His voice made Chinen jump before he resumed his wary staring in case the horse made any sudden movements. Keito handed Chinen a carrot. “Just say hello and be friendly?” he suggested. He didn’t really know anything about horses either but that had worked for him.

Chinen held the carrot out and winced as the horse stepped forward. “Hi?” he said in a quiet voice. The horse ate the carrot and Chinen tentatively patted its nose. “This isn’t so… bad. Maybe.”

“You’ll be fine. You’re Chinen Yuri. You can do anything.” Keito hoped that sounded encouraging. His own horse nudged the side of Chinen’s horse in what looked like its own form of friendly support.

Keito laughed. “Look, our horses are friends too.”

“Seems like it,” Chinen smiled.

“Alright people,” Yuto called out and clapped his hands for attention. “Time to ride! Inoo, get back over here.” Inoo and his horse trotted back over to the group, narrowly avoiding running into Yamada who glared at them all for interrupting his staring contest.

Yuto demonstrated the proper technique for getting on the horse a few times before the rest of them tried it. Keito took a deep breath and somehow managed to get on his horse. He petted its mane and said a quiet thank you. He looked to his side and found that not everyone else had fared so well. Yabu had apparently climbed up on his horse and then fallen directly off the other side. Hikaru had made it up there but his horse had bucked him off right away. And Daiki was having trouble reaching high enough to even climb up at all.

“We’re doomed,” Keito said.

“Well we can’t all be The Horse Whisperer like Inoo over there,” Chinen said, pointing to the pair that had already galloped away again.

“You made it,” Keito said, realizing Chinen had managed to climb up on his horse. “Good job.”

“I… needed a running start,” Chinen admitted. Keito wished he hadn’t missed watching Chinen apparently vault himself onto his own horse.

After a few more tries, and a lot of carrots for Hikaru’s horse, the nine of them were finally on their horses. Yuto led them around a bit as they got used to guiding the horses and learning what different speeds they could move around at.

“It’s kinda hard to move in all this heavy armor,” Daiki complained. He’d borrowed a helmet from Tim, but the rest of his armor was the antique samurai stuff they’d been wearing when they arrived here. They had all supplemented their missing armor parts with English armor normally worn by the local knights. The two styles clashed, so they all stood out in a crowd, but at least they were safe.

“Would you like to have someone charge at you with a lance _without_ all the heavy stuff?” Yabu asked. He was leaning to the side and looking like he was dangerously close to sliding off his horse again.

“Definitely not,” Daiki answered. “Hey Yuto, maybe you should put on some pants.”

Yuto looked down at his legs just to check what he was wearing. “I’m wearing pants!” he exclaimed. Daiki gave him a deadpan stare for a long moment. “Oh, you meant I should put the lower half of my armor on.” He was the only one who’d neglected to scrounge up some extra armor earlier.

“Yes.”

Yuto pouted and then galloped away towards the castle to go borrow some. While he was gone, Takaki passed out lances and shields for everyone. Keito explained more of the particulars of the sport to refresh their memories, but he really didn’t know anything about properly handling the equipment. There weren’t details like that in the stuff he’d read at the museum.

Both the lance and the shield were heavy in his hands while also being large and unwieldy. It took all of his concentration to hold them both up at once. His fingers curled around the hilt of the lance and the strap of the shield, and he wondered whether he’d be able to defend himself at all. It’d be embarrassing for him to be the first one out of the tournament. But on the bright side, at least this wouldn’t be on national television.

Once Yuto returned, they decided it was time to divide up into pairs so they could run through a few practice jousts. First up was Inoo versus Yamada. Their horses began galloping towards each other, picking up speed as they got closer and closer together. And once they were almost in range of the lances, Inoo let out a ridiculously loud shout through his helmet, startling Yamada so much that he fell off of his horse without even being touched by the lance. They could hear Inoo laughing as he circled back around to wrangle up Yamada’s free horse that had continued on without its rider.

“Inoo used Intimidate. It was Very Effective,” Hikaru said, like he was commentating on a Pokemon battle.

“We’re doomed,” Keito repeated again.

Next they paired Yuto up with Yabu. It seemed like things were going to go better with this joust until Yuto tried to do some fancy swinging thing with his lance and accidentally dropped it before he even got close to Yabu. He tried to defend himself with his shield but was knocked off anyway.

“I win!” Yabu cheered, and then slipped off his own horse.

“We’re going to be stuck here forever, aren’t we?” Daiki said.

Takaki versus Hikaru was a better match but it took a while to begin because Hikaru’s horse wouldn’t listen to any commands and kept trying to go eat some nearby flowers. Once they finally got going, they both managed to make a hit with their weapons, but both remained on their horses. They went another round but Hikaru’s horse veered off course before he ever got close, seemingly distracted by some tasty-looking grass.

“Who thought signing up for this was a good idea?” Inoo asked.

After finally declaring the Hikaru/Takaki match a draw, Keito and Chinen were up next. Chinen kept adjusting the borrowed helmet that was too big for him, and Keito just hoped he didn’t throw up from the nerves. The horses galloped forward and Keito was surprised by just how fast they were. The wind was rushing past his armor as he moved ahead. Once he was close enough he extended the lance out but it only bounced off of Chinen’s shield. At the same time, Keito leaned to the side to avoid Chinen’s lance. He almost fell off but somehow managed to adjust his weight in time to hang on.

“Guess this one’s a draw too,” Yamada announced with a sigh.

The only person left was Daiki. After an intense game of rock-paper-scissors, Yuto ended up being the one to face him. They squared off and charged towards each other. But instead of holding the lance straight out, Daiki held his like a baseball bat. Yuto looked like he was going to try to twirl his like a drumstick again, but thought better of it and just mimed Daiki’s pose. When they met, they crossed lances like two swords, so both of their attacks were ineffective while also looking really dumb.

“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it,” Takaki said, scratching the side of his head.

“Does anyone listen to me when I explain things?” Keito muttered.

They continued for a few hours before finally deciding to take a break for lunch. Yamada had planned ahead and packed a picnic lunch for them all. Keito sat on the ground and munched on his sandwich, trying to ignore all the aches and pains from their training session. His muscles felt like they were on fire. He’d never realized how bouncy a galloping horse was until he spent hours on one. On top of that, the armor was really starting to chafe in uncomfortable places.

Everyone else seemed to be tired out from all the training too. Inoo, helmet removed, was lying face down in the grass snoring away loudly, scaring away tiny ants that were just trying to go about their daily business. The only person still full of energy was Yuto, of course, but only because he had removed the bottom half of his armor again and was running around with the horses.

On the bright side, at least they had been improving a bit. Yabu still couldn’t manage to stay on his horse longer than a few minutes, but during his last match-up against Daiki, he managed to tackle the shorter boy off of his horse while on his way towards the ground. Keito decided not to point out that was against the rules because Yabu had been so proud of his accomplishment. And after tying a carrot to a stick, Hikaru managed to lead his easily distracted horse in the right direction for the joust, but the only problem was that they both moved a bit too slowly for a real match.

“I think maybe we should just wrap up for the day and rest until the tournament tomorrow,” Chinen suggested. “We don’t want to be too tired to even participate.”

“I think I’ve already pulled three different muscles,” Daiki said with a nod of agreement.

“I told you you were supposed to stretch,” Yamada said as he packed up the remains of their lunch back into his picnic basket.

“I think we’ll be just fine,” Takaki said. “We’re destined to win after all.”

“You’re just saying that because you didn’t fall off during any of your practice jousts,” Yabu complained.

Takaki patted Yabu on the shoulder and gave him a smile. “I believe in you, Yabu.”

“Believe in the me who believes in you who believes in the heart of the cards!” Hikaru shouted at them both enthusiastically.

“…what does that even mean?” Yuto asked.

“It’s a mash-up of anime… references… oh nevermind,” Hikaru said and walked away to track down his wandering horse again. But not without poking Keito with his lance first. Keito sighed.

A shriek from Inoo startled everyone and they all turned to see what was going on. He was sitting on the ground, rubbing his nose with a really disgusted look on his face, apparently having been woken up unpleasantly from his nap.

“What happened?”

“I think an ant crawled up my nose,” Inoo answered. He looked like he was trying to decide whether to stick his finger up his nostril to check if it was still there or not.

“We’re doomed,” Keito repeated once again.

***

The rest of the group had fallen asleep in the little guest house that night, but Keito couldn’t sleep. Not just yet anyway. Quietly, he navigated his way past the sleeping bodies of his friends until he made it to the door, careful not to wake anyone. Once he was outside, his eyes adjusted to the light from the stars and the moon enough to allow him to find a nice grassy spot to lie down on. He never got a chance to see stars in Tokyo. He had almost forgotten how beautiful those twinkly-looking spots actually were.

He was feeling anxious about the impending tournament. It felt almost like the ants that had crawled up Inoo’s nose earlier were now crawling around in his stomach. Keito wanted to do his best, but he wasn’t sure his best was good enough. He could go through the motions in theory, but once he was out in front of a cheering crowd, he didn’t believe he would be able to pull everything together.

“Hey,” a voice spoke from behind him. He tilted his head a bit to see Chinen walking towards him. He lay down on the ground beside him, wiggling a bit as he got comfortable.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Keito asked.

“You kicked me by accident when you left earlier.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Chinen laughed. “It’s okay. Are you worried again?”

“Worried that I might embarrass or injure myself in front of a bunch of people tomorrow? No, of course not,” Keito said sarcastically. “It’s not like I always do that or anything.” He stared at the moon above him, bright like a giant balloon in the sky. He sort of wished he could grab onto that balloon and float away.

Chinen was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Keito looked over to him and could see the stars reflected in his dark eyes. Keito was so focused on Chinen’s face that he didn’t notice the arm that swung out and hit him in the stomach until it was too late.

“What was that for?” he asked with a cough to catch his breath.

“You need to have more confidence. You’re way too hard on yourself. The negativity is sad.”

“My negativity is based on true life experiences.”

“Really?” Chinen snorted. “You’re gonna let a few bad experiences get you down? You were actually really good in practice today. Why can’t you see that?”

Chinen sat up and looked quite upset in the pale moonlight reflecting off of his skin. “And you think you have a bunch of failings? You think that because you miss a few dance steps, a few music notes, and stumble over a few words that you’re not any good at _anything_?”

Keito didn’t say anything to interrupt the sudden lecture.

“Should I remind you that I’m not perfect either? Remember that time I would have drowned in Hawaii if Takaki hadn’t been there to pull me out? Remember that I still don’t have a license to drive because I’m actually too scared to? Remember that I used to be so shy on film sets that I played with duct tape instead of actually talking to people? Yeah, I have flaws too, but I don’t let them stop me from doing things. You’re talented too.”

“Why are you yelling at me?” Keito asked. He leaned away a bit because he’d never seen Chinen get very angry about anything. But he knew deep down that Chinen was right about what he was saying.

Chinen sighed as all the anger he had worked up seemed to drain right out of him. He resumed his position on his back to look at the stars. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s like time-travel jetlag making me grumpy or something?”

Keito laughed quietly at this weird explanation now that the tension between them had eased up. He looked up at the sky again and noticed a few wispy clouds were rolling in with the gentle breeze from the west. “To be honest, I don’t know why I don’t have any confidence. All I know is that you’re like… a bright shining star and I’m just… me.” He tried to explain it the best he could.

Chinen suddenly gasped like he just had an epiphany. “You know what you are?” He swung his arm out and hit Keito in the chest again, but this time in excitement for his idea. “You are the hero of another story!”

“I’m what?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Chinen nodded as if confirming it for himself. “Back home, it’s true that you aren’t the center of the group. There’s nothing wrong with that because you’re still an important part of our group, no matter what position you are. But you’re quiet and you sometimes let yourself fade into the background.” 

Keito couldn’t argue with that. There had been a time when he didn’t even have solo lines in any of their songs. But that had changed more recently, as they had begun to spread things out more evenly within the group. They had reached a balance.

“But _here_ in medieval England, this is your story,” Chinen continued. “This is where you’re the hero. You’re our translator, our guide to jousting. You’re calm and collected even though we’re all secretly freaking out about being trapped in the past so far away from home.”

Chinen pointed straight up at the multitude of stars hanging in the dark sky above them. “You said I was like a shining star, but don’t you see all of these stars here? They’re _all_ shining. No particular one is better than the one beside it. I’m shining. You’re shining. We all shine brightly together.” 

Keito waited to see if Chinen would continue but that seemed to be the end of his pep talk. “Thank you,” Keito said. A smile rushed across his face. Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as he thought.

“Let’s go back and sleep,” Chinen suggested. He stood up and brushed the dirt off of his clothes. “It’s starting to get really cold out here.”

Keito followed him back to the guest house, but took one last look at the sky before going back inside. The wind had shifted directions, pushing away the wispy clouds that had been trying to roll in earlier. And Keito felt a bit like he’d shifted directions too. Maybe the hero of this story was on the right track now, he thought.

***

There were definitely more people here than Keito had expected. It was certainly a lot more than the crowd they’d seen when they first arrived in this time period. Everyone was all gathered in a wide open space beside Tim’s castle, making a large circular ring of people around the bare patch of dirt perfect for the jousting competition field. Keito had a better look at the peasants settling in to watch. They wore clothes similar to what he expected to see in movies and they all looked a bit dirty, which was also what he sort of expected from what little he knew of this historic time period. What surprised him, however, was that all the hairstyles looked like something out of the 1990’s. Keito supposed that fashion really _did_ go in cycles.

Still, Keito was surprised by the amount of people who had shown up. But then again, he considered that there probably wasn’t much else to do around here. He had, after all, just this morning witnessed Yuto and Hikaru amuse themselves by simply throwing sticks at each other.

“If you keep zoning out like that, Takaki will probably sneak over here and braid your horse’s hair.”

“What?” Confused, Keito turned to see Chinen standing beside him.

Chinen gestured to where the rest of their group was waiting with their horses. Sure enough, Takaki was braiding the brown mane of Daiki’s horse and putting bright flowers in its hair. Daiki was trying to shoo him away but Takaki looked determined.

“Since when has Takaki been a hairdresser?” Keito asked. Daiki had resorted to waving his arms in the air and attempted to kick Takaki in his armor-clad shins, which went about as well as one would expect.

“Since this morning when Inoo told him his roots were showing. I think he’s compensating for not being able to style his hair properly here without his usual hair products. Either that or he’s completely snapped.”

By now, Daiki had given up and was reluctantly handing Takaki flowers from his basket.

“So how do you feel about our chances of winning today?” Keito asked his friend. He’d seen some of the competition around and they all seemed to be veteran jousters. They looked comfortable in their armor and comfortable with their horses, while Keito still felt bulky in his metal suit and Chinen still seemed concerned that his horse was going to bite him or something. He had the reins in his hand but he was standing as far away as possible.

“Well…” Chinen began slowly, scanning the crowd himself. “Yabu still can’t get the hang of staying on his horse for more than three minutes, Daiki still thinks he’s supposed to swing his lance like a baseball bat, Hikaru’s horse keeps getting distracted, and…” he trailed off as he noticed something out of the corner of his eye and did a double take. “And Yuto’s _still_ not wearing pants.” He raised his voice to call across the way to remind Yuto to put on his missing pieces of armor.

“That’s not very reassuring,” Keito said. He watched as Yamada dragged Yuto away to properly dress him while nearby Inoo was waving a red scarf at his horse like he was a bullfighter in Spain instead of a jouster in medieval England. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“But I think we’ll be okay,” Chinen concluded. “We have a bright shining star after all. It’s your turn to be the hero.” He grinned and poked Keito’s cheek.

“I’ll… try?” Keito tried to gather up as much confidence as Chinen had. They believed their only hope of returning to the present rested on winning the trophy. He couldn’t slack off and give up now.

“That’s the spirit! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to stop the Horse Whisperer from getting trampled.” Chinen left in the direction of Inoo and his increasingly agitated horse. Keito wondered how Chinen was going to manage his rescue without getting too close to the horses. But before he could see what happened, he was distracted by a familiar _clang_ against his armor. He turned to see, not surprisingly, Hikaru standing there with his lance and a devious grin.

“What was that for?”

“Last minute practice,” Hikaru answered with a devious grin that rivaled even Chinen’s worst one.

Keito was about to just ignore Hikaru’s annoying way of teasing him, but then he remembered Chinen’s advice to be more confident. If he was supposedly the hero after all, he couldn’t back down from anything that got in his way. So instead of just turning his back on Hikaru, he picked up his lance and poked him back, feeling satisfied with the _clang_ that resonated loudly on contact.

Hikaru unexpectedly laughed. “That was a pretty good hit. I’ve been waiting to see when you’d strike back. I’d wish you good luck today but I don’t think you’ll really need it to win.”

Keito blinked. Hikaru had never been one of his most encouraging bandmates. In the early days of their group, Hikaru had always been the harshest in correcting his mistakes, never missing the opportunity to scold him if necessary. It took Keito a while to realize that Hikaru had only been trying to help him in his own way. And it _had_ helped. Keito had come a long way from the kid who cried whenever he had trouble with difficult choreography.

“Thanks,” Keito said.

“Don’t be sappy,” Hikaru responded. “No time for that. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go find the rest of my jousting gear.” He was, of course, referring to his easily distracted horse which had wandered away again. He raised himself to his tiptoes and scanned the crowd.

Keito caught sight of the light-colored horse poking its head around a food stall one of the villagers had set up. He pointed Hikaru in the right direction and then rejoined the rest of the group. The tournament was about to start soon.

Yabu dug out a crumpled piece of parchment from somewhere inside of his armor and cleared his throat for their attention. “I have a speech I want to make,” he declared. He squinted at his messy ink-blotted handwriting for a moment before beginning.

“Today is a momentous occasion,” he began in dramatic voice, “for we, Hey Say Jump, fearless accidental time-travelers are about to kick ass in our first jousting tournament.”

“Aren’t we supposed to knock them on their ass, not kick them?” Inoo asked.

Yabu ignored him and just continued on with his speech full speed ahead. “We trained long and hard for a chance to participate and to hone our jousting skills.”

“It was really only like a few hours of training yesterday and half of that was spent staring at our horses because Yuto said that’s how we’re supposed to bond with them,” Daiki interrupted to clarify.

Yabu cleared his throat again for full attention. “And this morning we celebrated with a hearty feast of the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals—”

“Skip ahead a bit, Yabu,” Takaki insisted gently because honestly, they hadn’t eaten any of that stuff during their breakfast.

Without missing a beat, Yabu skipped down half his page of writing and continued. “So _hey_! I _say_ it’s time to _jump_ into action and joust like we’ve never jousted before.”

“Well we _haven’t_ jousted before,” Yamada pointed out.

Yabu, however, would not be deterred from his speech. “And thus, verily I hope we will do our best to winneth the trophy and figureth out how to time-travel back home, but preferably not as roughly this time since I have a rather large bruise from the first trip. So anyway, we’re all in this together and it shows when we stand hand in hand, make our dreams come true.”

“…were you quoting High School Musical with that last bit?” Yuto asked.

“I didn’t understand half of that,” Chinen said. “Do you know what he means, Hikaru?”

They all turned to Hikaru for an explanation but he just shrugged. “I stopped asking that question in 2005.”

A loud trumpet sounded out across the field and they realized that it was finally time for the tournament to officially begin. Keito swallowed to force down the anxiety crawling up his throat. Tim climbed up on a platform to welcome everyone but Keito didn’t listen to much of it. The first match was Daiki versus a fierce-looking knight, so Keito spent more time watching them get into place and prepare for the signal to start.

“ _Ready… GO_!” Tim called out. Daiki and his opponent lurched forward, horses picking up speed and kicking up dust into the air as they raced towards each other. It was all going well until the very last moment when Daiki ignored all his training and still swung the lance like a baseball bat. He successfully knocked his opponent from his horse and Daiki cheered at his accomplishment, pumping his fist in the air. Half of the group immediately face-palmed but Inoo enthusiastically cheered on his best friend.

“ _Disqualified_ ,” Tim announced.

“What does that mean?” Daiki asked as he trotted back to Keito.

“Uh… you have a great home run swing?” Keito said, trying to be tactful. “But they’re jealous of your hit, so you can’t participate anymore.”

Daiki pouted but nodded like that was an understandable reason for getting kicked out of the tournament. He didn’t have much time to pity himself anyway since all the attention went to the next matchup: Yuto versus a knight as tall as him. It wasn’t often that Yuto encountered people that would tower over the crowd like him. Keito wondered if this would make the joust more evenly matched.

Yuto handled his horse with the grace and precision of someone with years of horse-riding experience. Luckily, the other knight wasn’t as coordinated. They watched as his horse stumbled forward and his shield wobbled precariously in his hands. Yuto got close enough to make contact, and he was able to knock his opponent to the ground.

They all cheered since that was their group’s first legitimate win. Keito was suddenly enveloped into a bone-crushing hug from Takaki who was standing closest to him. The pressure against his ribcage was cutting off his air supply.

“Uh… Takaki…? Can’t… breathe…”

“My bad,” Takaki said as he pulled away. He handed Keito a random flower from his horse’s mane as an apology. Keito looked at it in confusion and then threw it away over his shoulder as soon as Takaki wasn’t looking.

The next two matches were between knights they didn’t know. Neither one was particularly exciting, so Keito’s adrenaline levels dropped a bit and he let himself relax. Once a knight in solid black armor won and trotted off the field, Inoo and Yabu went up to take their places. It was a bit frustrating that they’d been matched up against each other, but it was inevitable anyway because if they made it past the first round, the whole group would be matched up against one another eventually.

The results of their joust really weren’t that surprising. As usual, Yabu managed to fall off his own horse before Inoo even got close enough to hit him with the lance. With a disappointed sigh, Inoo and his horse gracefully leaped over Yabu. Keito was pretty sure Inoo would have been better off entering some sort of jumping competition but that apparently hadn’t become popular yet. Or maybe it hadn’t been invented yet. He wasn’t quite sure.

Takaki was up next and Keito watched in confusion as Takaki politely handed his opponent a flower crown for his dark stallion. The colors actually made a beautiful contrast with the horse’s shiny black coat. The knight said a confused thank you before taking their places. Even the peasants got quiet as they watched the battle of the flower-adorned horses.

It was over as quickly as it started. Perhaps the flowery gift had been a tactic to distract his opponent because Takaki’s lance made contact and knocked him off with ease. He landed on the ground with a thunk, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust. There was silence in the crowd until Takaki took off his helmet and shook his still-perfect hair like he was a fancy model in a photoshoot. That suddenly made the people cheer loudly. He helped his opponent up before returning to the group.

“How do you keep your hair so perfect even while wearing that heavy hot helmet?” Keito asked. He could feel sweat dripping down the sides of his own head.

Takaki just shrugged. “Um… I just have good hair?”

Truly, this was a bigger mystery than the time-travelling one, but Keito had no time to ponder it because Yamada was up against Hikaru in the next match. The two of them squared off and Keito held his breath in anticipation because he wasn’t sure what Hikaru’s horse was gonna do. The horse looked like it had been eyeing the flowers in Takaki’s horse’s hair for some time. But much to the surprise of everyone, Hikaru’s horse galloped straight forward towards Yamada.

“What a shock!” Yabu said as he leaned forward to get a better look.

Yamada dramatically ducked the lance flying towards his chest while Hikaru easily swerved around Yamada’s own attack. There was a sigh of disbelief from the crowd as the match was a draw. Everyone turned to Tim for a ruling, but he just shrugged and declared a rematch.

This went on for five more rounds until Hikaru’s horse finally lost its sudden focus and wandered off for a tasty patch of clover nearby. Frustrated, Hikaru just jumped off and gave up. Yamada cheered and did a victory lap around the field until Yuto grabbed the reins and pulled him away.

It was finally Keito’s turn. He looked across the jousting field to his opponent: Chinen. He took a deep breath because that was the last person he wanted to face off against even if he had faced off against him during practice already. Even if Keito was feeling a little more confident than before, Chinen was still the most capable person he knew. The person able to do a ton of backflips in a row, able to easily memorize choreography on the first try, able to charm people into buying him dinner all the time, including Keito on way too many occasions.

Keito flipped the face-guard down on his helmet and squared his shoulders. He took a deep breath and urged his horse forward. The adrenaline was pumping through his body and his hands were shaking. Everything felt like it was moving in both slow motion and at ridiculously fast speeds as he and his horse moved closer and closer to Chinen. He couldn’t see the other’s face, but he could imagine the look of determination behind the helmet. He could see the intensity in Chinen’s shoulders hunched forward. With as much force as he could muster, Keito thrust his weapon out while simultaneously putting his shield up to defend himself.

Somehow he managed to maneuver just right to land a hit. Chinen, who had chosen to throw his shield up instead of the lance, lost his balance. Keito watched in a semi state of shock as Chinen fell off his horse and he was declared the winner. He hopped off of his horse and went to check if Chinen was okay. But Chinen had already stood back up and removed his helmet. He looked relieved.

“Are you okay?” Keito asked as they led their horses off the field.

“Better than okay,” Chinen said with a smile. “I didn’t lose on purpose but I was really hoping you’d knock me off.”

“Why is that?”

Chinen turned towards the direction of the stables. “Because I sure as hell don’t want to ever do that again,” he explained. “I’ll stick with my dangerous trapeze stunts instead of this any day.”

Keito nodded and watched as Chinen went to put his now-unnecessary horse back in the stable. He couldn’t blame Chinen for feeling that way, but Keito was surprised that he himself didn’t feel the same. The joust had actually been… fun? In a weird sort of way. Kind of more thrilling than it was in practice yesterday. For a brief moment, the crowd had been cheering for _him_.

“Nice work,” Yamada said as Keito rejoined the group. The next round of the tournament was beginning and Yuto was up against the knight Daiki had home-run’d off his horse earlier. He looked like he was ready for some payback for the first round.

Yuto, however, was not intimidated. He had finally gotten the hang of twirling his lance like a giant drumstick and was currently giving his opponent a staredown as he tossed the weapon effortlessly into the air.

Keito watched the joust and held his breath, wondering if Yuto would make it. The two of them collided, both making contact. Yuto shouted loudly and Keito wasn’t sure if it was from pain or the adrenaline rush, but he stayed on his horse while his opponent did not. The crowd cheered loudly and Keito cheered loudest of all. This time Yuto did a victory lap until Yamada grabbed the reins and pulled him off the field.

“Well this is going better than expected so far,” Hikaru said.

Inoo’s next joust was up against the black-armored knight from earlier. Keito hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to his match, but he seemed like a determined competitor, like he wasn’t going to let anyone stand in his way. If there had been a bridge to guard, this knight would be standing in front of it, ready for battle.

Inoo, however, was unfazed by the knight and tried his own intimidation tactic of shouting in Kansai dialect. While all of JUMP stifled giggles at Inoo’s weird rant, it didn’t have much effect on anyone who didn’t speak Japanese. So it was disappointing when the knight easily won the joust. But Inoo quickly got off the ground and dusted himself off before hopping back on his horse. The two of them cantered off the field and leaped over a large bush on the way out.

“Show off,” Yamada muttered.

Keito watched Takaki’s match which went smoothly and quickly in favor of Takaki. He was beginning to think the flowers and braids were some sort of good luck charm. Again, the crowd of peasants cheered loudly for Takaki and he showered them with rose petals. Keito wasn’t even going to ask where he’d been keeping those.

All too quickly, it was time for Keito’s next joust. His opponent this time was Yamada. He took his position and quickly glanced at the crowd. Chinen was there giving both of them a thumbs up of support. He almost wanted to laugh at the cheesy look on his face.

If Chinen had been intimidating, Yamada was just as bad. Keito could easily think of a million times when Yamada had conquered difficult tasks while often being the sparkling center of their group. The guy was afraid of heights but still managed to do complicated tricks on high wires in their concerts.

Once the trumpet sounded to begin their match, Keito got off to a bit of a rough start with his horse stumbling over his first few steps. Keito leaned forward and patted the side of the horse’s neck and whispered a few words of encouragement. On the other side of the field, Yamada tried to fake him out by suddenly switching his lance and his shield, but Keito already knew how Yamada played the game.

The next thing he knew, Keito had landed a hit and Yamada lost his balance because he hadn’t yet adjusted to repositioning his gear. He fell gracefully to the ground. Again the crowd cheered as Keito won.

“You’re really good at this,” Yamada said as Keito helped him get back up.

“We had a good match,” Keito said, shrugging off the compliment. He never knew what to do when people praised him anyway.

Since that was the end of the round, Tim declared a short break for everyone to rest.

“I’m hungry. There should be snacks,” Daiki said, looking around for someone selling food. Yabu went with him in search of something to eat while they waited for the next round to begin.

Keito went over in his head the rest of the competitors left. It was just Yuto versus the scary black-armored knight and Takaki versus Keito. They all seemed to be pretty evenly matched so the results could go either way. But their odds of winning the trophy were pretty good since there was only the one other guy who could stand in their way.

“What will we do if we don’t win the tournament?” Yuto asked. He looked like he was itching to take his armor pants off again but couldn’t because he still had to fight again.

“We could always just steal the trophy?” Inoo suggested.

“But the museum exhibit said we won it,” Daiki said as he returned, munching on his food. “If we stole it, does that change history?” He held out more food for the rest of the group. “We brought you guys some chicken-on-a-stick if you want.”

Keito didn’t have much of an appetite now that he’d been reminded of how much pressure was left on him, Takaki, and Yuto. He handed his stick of food to Chinen who gleefully accepted the free stuff.

“No pressure,” Hikaru said, clapping their shoulders, “but I’d really like to get back home. I forgot to set my DVR to record some TV shows I wanted to watch.”

“ _That’s_ all you’re worried about?” Takaki asked.

Keito didn’t say anything but he was worried about a bit more than Hikaru was. He wondered how the staff reacted once they discovered that they’d gone missing. They’d already spent two nights here. He imagined that their families were upset and their manager was probably freaking out searching for them.

“We’re going to win,” Chinen said confidently, breaking Keito’s train of distressing thoughts. “If we worry too much, you all won’t be able to do your best.”

The trumpet sounded to signal the start of the next round. Yuto put his helmet back on and prepared to battle against the knight. If he managed to win this match, then they would be guaranteed to win the tournament. But the knight in the black armor didn’t look like he would go down so easily. Even if the knight lost his arms and legs, Keito thought he’d still keep fighting and wouldn’t give up.

“May the odds be ever in your favor,” Chinen said and pushed Yuto towards his horse.

“Can you think of something more uplifting than _Hunger Games_ quotes?” Yuto complained. “I didn’t volunteer as tribute.”

They all cheered as loudly as they could for Yuto, but it wasn’t enough to keep him on his horse once the two of them collided. They instantly fell quiet even as the rest of the crowd watching cheered. Yuto picked himself off the ground and shrugged sadly before walking off the field.

“It was a good try,” Keito said.

“Now it’s up to you or Takaki,” he answered. He shamelessly began to take his metal pants off in front of everyone again now that he didn’t need them anymore. He looked happy to be able to move his legs freely once more.

Keito sighed, not wanting to face another one of his bandmates again. Takaki offered his horse a flower crown but he politely refused. He had more things to worry about than whether his horse looked pretty or not. Unlike his previous opponents, Takaki was bigger than him and he’d have to use more force than before to knock him off. Keito rolled his shoulders to loosen them up. By now, he had used the lance and the shield so much that they were beginning to feel like an extension of his body. Chinen had told him time and time again to be more confident, but now he was finally starting to feel it.

Unlike his last two jousts where Keito was a bit reluctant to fight, this time he went forward with all his might. But perhaps he was a bit overconfident because he got the timing of his attack wrong and didn’t do much damage. Instead, Takaki’s hit knocked him back a bit and he dropped his shield to grab hold of his horse before he fell off. He looked back at Takaki, but he hadn’t budged.

Tim declared a draw, so they’d have to face off again. As he got back into position, he glanced back over to the rest of his bandmates. They looked like they didn’t know which person to cheer for. But deep down, he hoped they were cheering for him. He would allow himself to be selfish just this once and he would be more cautious this time.

Everything seemed to go twice as fast this time. Keito blinked and suddenly he had won the match. Takaki’s hit hadn’t been as hard this time while Keito’s had been twice as strong. Takaki had been the crowd’s favorite, so they all got quiet once they realized he’d been eliminated, but then Takaki got up and shook Keito’s hand which made the crowd happy again.

_Clang._

Keito looked to his right and was not at all surprised to see Hikaru grinning at him. “Now it’s just you and that guy,” he said, pointing to the knight who had beat Yuto.

“We’re all counting on you,” Yabu said. “Should I give another speech for good luck?”

“Uh… no I think I’m good,” Keito answered. Yabu’s first speech hadn’t really made much sense. He went to get back into position for the final but Chinen stopped him by grabbing his elbow. Keito turned to look at his friend.

“Time to shine, Hero,” he said quietly and smiled.

Keito nodded with determination. He’d try his best. The black-clad knight in front of him looked ready to joust. Keito took a deep breath. It was all up to him now. His arms were getting tired but he ignored the pain as he raised up his lance and shield. The trumpet sounded and Keito galloped straight ahead as fast as his horse could travel. He leaned forward to pick up speed. It was different this time since he didn’t know anything about his opponent except for what he had seen in the previous matches. As he drew closer and closer he focused on the knight, how he held his weapon, how he led his horse. If he focused enough, he would be able to pick out the knight’s weak spot.

And there it was: a dented spot in the lower part of his chest plate. He guessed that it had been damaged in an earlier joust. If Keito could hit it just right, perhaps it would be with enough force to knock him to the ground. He aimed and the cheers of the people faded into the background so that the only thing he could hear was the hoofbeats of his horse and the sound of his breathing. And when his lance made contact with the knight’s armor it resonated with a _clang_ that he was all too familiar with. But he couldn’t relax yet because in his effort to aim properly, he had forgotten about using his shield. The other knight’s lance pushed him back and slightly sideways and Keito couldn’t check to see if his opponent had fallen because he was busy trying to hang onto his horse.

The horse hit a rough patch in the ground, making Keito lose more of his grip. He was holding on only by his knees pressing against the side of his horse and without thinking, he dropped his lance and his shield in order to free his hands. Just as he felt himself slipping off, he remembered something Chinen had said to him back before they’d travelled through time, back when the two of them were sitting on the park bench waiting for filming to begin. “You’re our anchor in a storm,” Chinen had said. Keito hadn’t understood then, but he definitely understood now. He had to hold on just like an anchor. He absolutely could not allow himself to lose the joust. He was the only one left to win the trophy.

With all the strength he could muster up, Keito gritted his teeth and pulled himself back up to a sitting position, feeling the strain against all his muscles. He let out a huge sigh of relief and turned to see whether his opponent had made it too. He couldn’t help but grin when he removed his helmet and saw the knight off of his horse, dusting off the dirt left behind from when he’d fallen.

He had _won._

The crowd went wild at the exciting conclusion of the joust, and the loudest of all were his bandmates. He saw them jumping and hollering together on the sidelines while waving him over to congratulate him on his win.

“That was AWESOME!” Yuto shouted in his ear as he wrapped him into a bear hug. Keito had no time to respond as the rest of the group joined in as well. A few rose petals fluttered in his peripheral vision and he realized Takaki was showering them with the bright red flower in celebration.

“I knew you could do it,” Chinen whispered to him in all the chaos.

Keito smiled and finally felt like he had done something great. “Thanks for believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

“Don’t be sappy,” Hikaru interrupted and reached forward like he and Yabu were going to pick him up and throw him up in the air in celebration.

“Let’s not do that,” Keito exclaimed and wiggled away from the danger. He may have conquered jousting, but there were just some things better left undone.

Once the chaos had settled down, Tim waved them over to present Keito with the trophy. This was the moment of truth. The Heisei Knights had won the tournament, but they still had no idea how they were going to get home now that their mission had been accomplished.

Keito stepped forward to accept the prize, but he pulled Chinen along with him because without his encouragement he never would have made it. Tim said a few nice words that Keito didn’t bother to translate. The group was all waiting in anticipation.

Slowly, he and Chinen reached out for the fancy trophy. As soon as their hands made contact, they were all engulfed in a bright white light right before everything went dark.

***

Keito blinked as his eyes adjusted to the change in light. They were all standing back inside the museum right where they’d been before. Keito looked around and saw the confused but relieved faces of all his friends. The British armor they’d borrowed from Tim had disappeared and they were left only with the parts of the samurai armor they’d been wearing before.

“How long have we been gone?” Yamada asked.

Daiki pulled out his cell phone and checked. He grinned as soon as he realized his phone was working again. “We’ve only been gone… a few minutes I think?”

The sound of footsteps caught their attention and they all turned to see a staff member moving towards them. “Hey,” he called out, “we’re ready to start filming now.” He waved them all to leave the museum. The ticket lady was back from wherever she’d been earlier and was glaring at the staff member for coming inside without a ticket. She brightened up considerably when Takaki handed her a flower while they were on their way out.

They all shuffled back towards where the TV crew was set up. No one else seemed to notice, but they moved much more comfortably in the armor than before despite a few quiet complaints of achy muscles from the tournament. They didn’t tell anyone what had happened though because they knew no one would possibly believe them.

“After what we’ve just gone through, filming _Itadaki_ this week is going to be a piece of cake,” Chinen said to Keito. The two of them were lingering at the back of the group as they walked together.

Up ahead, they saw Yabu grab the reins of a horse from one of the staff members and climb on. He promptly fell off the other side.

“Well, mostly,” Chinen corrected himself with a chuckle.

“That was actually really fun,” Keito admitted. “I’m glad we’re back but I think I’ll sort of miss being the hero for once.”

Chinen shot him a devious smirk. “Well, hey,” he called out as he began to walk away. “Who says that a hero is only limited to one adventure?”


End file.
